A Story of What Happened to Rav Moshe Danon and the Elders of the Jewish Community of Sarajevo on 20 October 1819

Anonymous

ca. 1820

Sensitive Content

This text contains threats of violence against Jewish people. The text provides insight into Jewish history; however, The Posen Library does not condone or promote violence or oppression of any kind.

Let us recount a story of the old days, of what happened to a great man who lived then.

He was our Rav Danon,
may his name endure forever.
We will not forget him ever,
We will extol him before God,
for the great salvation
he attained for our nation.
He delivered us from a villain
whose name was Rusdi Pasha.
The Jews were aware
they would live in terror
In the time of this cruel
enemy of Israel.
He was fierce as a snake.
Let his name be erased!
Vicious and haughty man,
he promised to pay
for governing this place
as is the Turkish way.
He concocted a scheme
to get money for the bribe.
Cursed be Moshe Haviyo,
wicked and insane,
enemy of Israel,
who converted to Islam
and then disappeared,
which is what he deserved.
Rusdi Pasha flew into a rage
like a beast in a cage,
and he used this occasion
to take revenge on our nation.
He said the Jews had murdered him
to wipe out his name.
This scoundrel thought
his time had come.
He was sure his scheme
would work as he dreamed
through a libel he invented,
and the people would accept it.
Israel’s evil oppressor
summoned to his palace
the Jewish elders and their crown,
the righteous Rav Moshe Danon.
Viciously he yelled at them,
“Turkey’s enemies you are”
How dared you murder him,
a good and venerated man,
beloved by our holy God,
and he was worthy of God’s love,
because he understood the truth?”
He didn’t let them say a word.
“All of you are going to die,
and this is as certain
as the sun is in the sky!”
He roared like a furious tiger,
“All of you deserve to die.”
They were confounded and stunned,
unable to pronounce a word.
He promised he would set them free
if only they agreed to pay
a huge amount he required,
a ransom they would never find.
He wouldn’t agree to less than that,
the sum they offered him instead.
He tortured and tormented them,
and finally put them in chains.
He hoped to take revenge on us,
but, like the plotting of Haman,
his devious plan was ill-conceived.
May our merciful king live!
The Sarajevo Muslims heard
of Rusdi Pasha’s brutal deeds.
They rose against the cruel Turk
and set the Jewish captives free.
As they couldn’t stand him anymore,
it went a way he hadn’t expected.
He got unhinged and lost his head,
And right away to Travnik1 fled.

Translated by
Olga
Borovaya
.

These koplas (couplets), among many other literary compositions in Ladino, celebrate the Purim of Sarajevo and the averted disaster of 1819, related in detail in the Sarajevo meguila (1900). Moshe Haviyo, a Jew from Travnik, converted to Islam, and under the name “Dervish Ahmed” preached against Jews. As he was soon killed, Mehmed Rusdi Pasha, governor of Bosnia, accused the Jews of ritual murder and arrested ten elders and the chief rabbi, Moshe Danon (d. 1830). On pain of death, they were required to pay an enormous fine within three days. Members of their community managed to secure the support of Sarajevo’s Muslims, who liberated the prisoners and achieved the governor’s dismissal. Danon’s burial place in Stolach became a pilgrimage site for Balkan Jews because many attributed this liberation to divine intervention brought about due to the rabbi’s righteousness.

Notes

[The capital city of Ottoman governors of Bosnia, fifty-six miles west of Sarajevo.—Trans.]

Credits

Author unknown, “Una kantika komponada i eskrita por la istoriya ke kapito al Rav Moshe Danon junto los grandes de la komuna de Sarayevo al 4 Marheshvan 5580,” in El Romancero Judeo-Español: (romances y otras poesías), ed. Samuel M. Elazar, vol. 1: Text in Ladino (Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1987), 191–193.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 6.

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